dont romanticize.

There was a grandma I adored, and one - not so much. Now, I can glean lessons from her - kinda.

The other was quite a bit older than my favorite and had survived the dust bowl in eastern Colorado dirt poor with just her, her sister and their young widowed mother. I'm not sure if it was the debt their much older father left her mother with when he keeled over (he was an awful man by all accounts) which led to both of the girls growing up so malnourished for so long that neither one would ever be able to bear a child. Or the fact that after years of work and sacrifice by them and their mother, my grandmother within months of graduating from college found herself and everyone they knew struggling yet again as the Depression gripped America that led her down the path which eventually turned her into, well, just a miserable person.

This particular woman, and I mean that in EVERY sense, had money stashed in banks in 3 different states, not to mention physical cash hidden in 2 houses, yet she still felt the need to stand in the back yard over an open fire with a giant pot making her own lye soap. She still drove the car her husband had purchased in 1965. She even saved the foil wrappers that margarine sticks came in and would wrap potatoes in them for baking stating that that was plenty of butter on a potato for anyone. In a sense now I appreciate her frugality.

I also now recognize that she was also a tad bat-shit crazy. I spent A LOT of time with this woman - A LOT. This was a woman that only purchased clothes from The Jones Store, only bought the same kind of nylons and undergarments year after year, meticulously pined her hair every single night of her life and slept like a corpse in casket. You know, flat on the back, hands folded across the chest - super creepy. She also measured herself each and every day of her adult life as far as I know. Let me explain. She had this long metal ruler in the top drawer of her dresser. Each morning she would take out the ruler, lie back down and place the ruler across her hips. If her belly came close to touching the ruler, that day she worked twice as hard and ate half as much as the day before.

As an adult now, I'm pretty sure there's a clinical term for her - probably several (not to mention drama queen of the universe) . Still now, for all her strange meanness, I can kind of see some things I should have paid more attention too.

She never through anything away until it was worn out past the point of repair. She did all her own yard work, mending, cooking, canning, cleaning, preserving and financial planning. She survived her husband by 30 years yet I have no doubt that she was this kind of driver long before he was gone. I'm not sure whose idea it was to adopt a child, but I've always had an inkling that it wasn't her. Even though she was a teacher, I always got the impression that she had a certain distaste for children. She didn't like to go anywhere in public with my younger siblings. She thought they had been babied to the point of uselessness. Me, well, she tolerated me. I don't think out of any real affection, but because she had me so much of the time that I was properly trained. I was dressed by her in clothes far beyond anything my parents could afford. My hair was perfectly set every night I stayed at her home. My little black patent mary jane's were shined spotlessly. My coat and pocketbook always matched and I wore jewelry which I was never allowed to wear out of her sight. Precious little necklaces, bracelets and my gold "baby" ring which was always tied to my wrist with a pink ribbon. I was taken to church, to ladies circle, to visit at her friends and relatives homes. My siblings and mother were never brought along. I was the little doll to show off and therefore acceptable to be seen with.

Why am I droning on about this? Well, first off I guess I haven't thought about any of this in probably 10 years and now that I have it's just sort of all pouring out. Also because as some of us are looking back to a "simpler" time for guidance on how to be prepared, yes, there are valuable lessons to be learned. But I think it's important not to romanticize the past. Our grandparents, and great grandparents did not live inside Rockwell painting. They were real people-just like us. And they were just as messed up as we are. So if you can't seem to work on your "old skool" skills 10 hours a day like "grandmother" did, don't sweat it. They weren't all that we would like to make them into.